Tokyo Guide

On Japanese New Year’s Day, it is custom for department stores to sell grab bags, known as fukubukuro in Japanese. These bags contain a random assortment of unsold and/or unwanted store merchandise, and are usually sold at a heavy discount as a way to thank loyal customers for patronizing the store. Fukubukuro, which translates to “good luck bag,” are generally random from bag to bag, so lucky customers can end up with expensive items while others might not.